The Rebel Queen

Two prostitutes struggle to have a new life: one falls for a man who later sacrifices her to marry the woman his mother has chosen for him; the other marries a good man who later discovers her sordid past.

Three men are reunited after 30 years by the echoes of a terrible crime. Old men now, and at the end of the line they are intrigued to meet a young girl named Sarah. Through her they are plunged back into the sordid (and hilarious) belly of Australia's underworld, both past and present.

After his wife's death, Thomas Singleton suffers a temporary breakdown and is committed to an asylum by his scheming half brother, Jordon Morse. Although Jordon has been appointed the guardian of Thomas' little daughter Virginia, he shuns the responsibility, placing the girl in the care of an old mammy and planning to retrieve her only on her eighteenth birthday, when she comes into possession of her mother's fortune. Sixteen years pass. Thomas, deeply worried about his daughter's well-being, escapes the asylum, and after sending Virginia to live with a poor but kindly cobbler named Lafe Grandoken, he dies. Virginia's chance meeting with millionaire Theodore King leads to romance, and her happiness is complete until Morse, anxious to secure her money, hires Maudlin Bates to kill Theodore. When Bates, plotting to double-cross Morse, threatens Lafe, Morse enters and shoots the gunman, but Lafe is accused. Morse imprisons Virginia, but she escapes in time to free Lafe and bring the villain to justice.